squiggle so many boxes but be careful to zero out or edit submitting textarea and files repeating entry (adding subj) "repeat_subjects" so long on mining many notes what are the num in set feedback for repeating back how much to write how to write confidential priorities 11 same errors week after week must I end session times of notes feedback on textarea and fileload feedback set# and no in set Non-Counseling vs therapy (oxford defs) rules for file uploads (save as text with lf line breaks) only way to be sure of a break is .br and for a space is .sp bad char's (what isn't allowed) and what is ?useable and of or an empty space sizes of submitted text vs reported may differ can repeat last ++ only if you just add it to que (req 6)' what is a bad char (that is removed from text) what about points what is bcit I lost my big squiggle note! (No prob, will rpt when you log in or when you attemjpt a heading) The text I uploaded in a file looks awful when I read the output. (while the text I type in looks ok) more on text .sp, .br and space=break clarify 'family' means all support folks turning a heading into a plain note BUT once hit 5, they wrap up the squiggle in discard options: keep squiggle (may not appear)vs 'any squiggle' beware of clicking on 5 when you want 6 eg for a heading if you were disconnected during a squiggle (get it next time) What is the ABR Blog? The ABR Blog is a system of communication for residential programs. It was designed long ago before email came into use -- before the PC actually. Because it was designed specifically for residential treatment, it still has advantages over email, instant messaging and blogging. The main advantages are that all staff members can read it and write public messages to one another sharing their work and concerns. At the same time, the entries, which are mostly about individual children and groups of children, can be selected and sorted in many ways so that information of interest is readily available. The two most important "products" (forms of output) are sets of notes for a cottage group which can be read daily (or for other periods of time) and notes about individual children which can be incorporated (either physically in hard copy, or electronically by reference) into their clinical records. Because so many staff regularly read and write in the log, it can also be the conduit of the many forms and reports which proliferate in institutions including incident reports, work orders, cottage clean up scores and so on. The main purpose of the log is to make a bigger place function more like a smaller place -- which leads to better care. Another purpose is to increase the bits of information which increase the ability to individualize clients and events, reducing the panic that leads administrators to make rules and invent forms. How much should I write in the log? Write only as much as your supervisor's and others read and use to help you and the children in your care grow. If they use a lot, write a lot; if they use little, write little. What is all this about squiggle notes. The squiggle note is one of the most important features of the log system which greatly increases the efficiency of simultaneously communicating about groups and the individuals within the groups. You must understand squiggle notes in order to use the system effectively. Read the following, and the _get_away_ from your computer and map out a squiggle note on paper -- writing one as though you never saw a computer. SQUIGGLE NOTES consist of a HEADING which describes the general aspects of a meeting or activity followed by any number of PLUS-PLUS (++) notes which describe the participation of individuals. Squiggle notes work efficiently for settings which use group process to potentiate individualized treatment. The notes facilitate describing at one pass both the group relationships and the participation of the individual members -- without having to repeat what is written or read. People reading a bunch of lognotes for a group will see only the whole note once (heading followed by the ++'s). Ponder this example from a group's daily section: (Heading) - Most of the group had a good time swimming and some were supportive when a thunderstorm hit... (++) =>John excelled at diving... (++) =>Bill was terrified of the thunder and hid under his banket... (++) =>Nick refused to swim, but tried to reassure Bill Meanwhile people seeking to read the record of an individual will see the heading followed only by the ++ note for that individual. As an example,from Bill's individual records: Most of the group had a good time swimming and some were supportive when a thunderstorm hit... =>Bill was terrified of the thunder and hid under his blanket. How can I repeat notes that apply to several individuals. You can repeat both 'plain' and '++' notes in either of two ways: First, after submitting a note, you can use the back button to go back and make minor changes, like assigning it to a different subject (eg kid). At that same time you could make minor changes in the text, addressee or other information. The second way is more efficient especially for a large number of repetitions. All you have to do is enter into the 'repeat' field the lnd numbers of the subjects for whom you want to repeat the note. The 'lnd' is a three digit number -- the first three digits of an individuals idno. An idno is really the combination of two numbers: the 3 digit lnd number followed by 2 digits specifying the year of admission or hiring. There are drop down lists which have both the name and lnd of individuals. The only place you have to use an lnd is in the repeat field, and you can readily determine the lnd from the drop down list just across the page to the left. I'm on a bad connection and the pages load very slowly. And your pages have too many confusing buttons. Whatd areya gunnuh do about it. We have tried as much as possible to reduce the number of times you have to change pages. This works out very well for the mining operations (reading output). However, it does require somewhat more learning to use the logging facilities because we don't have lots of pages walking you thru things and asking if it's ok or warning you before you do something drastic. We think you'll agree that it's better to spend your first sessions struggling to learn the system as a trade off so that it will be much quicker and more efficient for you in everyday use for months and years. My connection is so bad, I get bounced off just before I finish a long note, and I have to do it all over (:-(( Whatyagunnu do about that. Wherever you are required to enter a bunch of text, you have the option of also uploading a file. That means you can type your file off line and then submit it when it's convenient. You might still get disconnected, but you'll have your work saved on your harddrive or writable cdrom. Can I use the file upload and also enter text in the same note. Yes. The text you enter is added to the text in your file. What happens if I write a long squiggle note and then get disconnected. The next time you log on, as soon as you try to do anything, you'll get a notice that you can't because you have a squiggle in progress. You'll then have the opportunity to resume adding ++ notes to your squiggle or to submit it. Isn't that nice. Can I also file upload the special forms. Yes, electronic version of many of the forms are waiting in www.abrloggingandmining/forms for you to fill them out. You should download those electronic versionsof the forms, fill them out in a word processor and them use the fileupload fields on the web pages. How do I keep my uploaded files from turning out funny after I put them into the logs. You _must_ save them from your word processor as _text_ (file>save as>text and then, if you can, select 'lf' for the line endings. Also, leave blank lines between any text that you don't want to be (automatically bunched up). Definately leave an empty line between items on the forms and between paragraphs. How should I write in the logs so you don't make fun of me. Don't be institutionalized and try to sound pseudo-professional. Kids can be kids rather than 'residents' and 'peers' can have names like Joe or Bill. And you can be a person who is there involved in an encounter with the kids. Instead of: "Staff observed resident give advice to peer about staff's language preferences," say, "John was helpful in telling Bill that I didn't like cursing.". Most important, as you write, keep in mind that most likely the child, his case-worker, CASA and parent will read what you write! That is one of the most important _features_ of the log. It encourages you to write like a helpful, caring person who respects the child -- even maybe someone who thinks the child is special. Writing that way will encourage you to think that way, and thinking that way will help you act that way. If so many people are reading the log notes, what about confidentiality. Most of what goes on in a residential treatment center is better public than secret. In fact secrets whether among the children or staff (and worst of all between the staff and the children) are usually very counter-theraputic in a milieu in which openness and sharing are the goal of many of the theraputic interventions. Still, there are occasionally items which may need to be treated confidentially -- at least for a time. In the rare instances where you feel it is necessary, you can check the box on the web form provided for that purpose. However, be aware that, when you do so, it is likely that that note will be of no use in helping the client -- in fact we cannot guaruntee that any one will ever see that note again -- so it might be quite useless for you to be writing it. The best practice is to allude to the sensitive information in a vague way in the regular notes you write. That way, the people who are intimate with the client can be in the know while others don't get to learn all the gory details. When I submit a note I get feedback that only some of my characters were accepted. Lots of the 'control characters' that printers use to make things look pretty gum up the log works so we exclude them. Loosing a few of the special characters you word processor may generate isn't a problem. However, if you are loosing a large percentage, then you are doing something wrong (like note saving in text) or trying to produce fancy formatting and tables which the log system doesn't support. I also get feedback about the lognote id's that look something like: S1234 #5678. Whats that about. Every lognote has a uniq identifier (id number or 'name') consisting of the 'set number' (S1234) and the 'number in the set' (#5678). The notes get grouped in a set -- on set for everyday. All the lognotes go into that day's set. The set is named with the last digit of the year, followed by the 'julian' day (Jan 1 = julian day 001; Dec 31=365). So the S1234 is the 234rth day of the year 91. The 'number in set is the number of the lognote in the set; that is, we cound the lognotes as they are submitted into the system (1,2,3, and so on), so the first note is #0001. If you know the set number and number in set of a note you are interested in, you can use the mining facilities to fetch it up for you. That is very handy if one of the special reports (say a listing of restraints) lists an something interesting (like a 10 hour restraint) and you want to look at the actual lognote. It's also handy if your Monte and want to tell Toni you approve $10 for some property damage. You can just write a log note to her attention telling her of the approval along with the id numbers of the Property Damage report and the Work Order which she can then fetch out of the system when she gets his note. You probably don't need to know the number right off when you submit notes, but it's free. I don't see anything about the point system. I don't know how to handle the points. Well, we don't know either. The point system is under review and likely will change or maybe even go away. Hopefully, you and the kids will have input into those decisions. I myself favor the BCIT grading system which we'll describe below. In the meantime, the kids still get points, and you may be asked to enter them into the text of your lognotes -- where you'll be beter able to discuss how the kid earned his points. The one and only thing that is absolutely essential (at least for now), is that you submit the weekly form of averages as you have been -- which does not involve the log. We'd rather see you describing the _stories_ of the group and each kid's day than dribbling little blobs of points into many boxes. What we really want is to be able to take the names off the lognotes and still be able to tell which notes belong to which kids. Some day we'll do that; the log mechanisms provide an easy way to take the names off -- which is useful for this purpose as well as deidentifying the notes if we have occasion to show them outside the ABR community. What is the 'priority' option for and how should I use it? Well, we don't know that either yet. Most notes should be of 'medium' priority. The 'low' and 'documentation only' categories are to avoid 'log pollution' if we start to get too many notes coming thru the log for drill or only for some particular administrative purpose -- to help most of the folks not to read them. The 'high' priority category is basically a problem. People who need to know things should be reading most of the notes in their area of interest. The special attention section is also a good way for people to keep up with the important happenings and conversations. If people feel they have to start using 'high' a lot, it's like shouting which basically means that most folks aren't listening -- and that the log system is a failure. There is a lot about family related counseling and visits. Our kids don't have families. Wrong! Ask them and you'll fine out the truth. They all have a family in their head -- and almost all of them have people who are important to them -- with most of whom ABR and the child should be in contact: relatives, past or prospective foster or adoptive parents, case-workers, CASA's, judges, probation officers. In the basic lognote pages we've expanded family to include anyone who might be important in the child's life or who has a place in his heart. We expanded contact to include phone and letters as well as visits. We've also expanded contact and visits to include contact by either staff or child. Generally, the most helpful kind of contact occurs when the staff and child do it together. What is the 'BCIT'? This is a score . It's more useful for helping kids and training people who work in RTC's than it is for distributing allowances or managing behavior. In fact, the main point of it is to alert folks who want to make a difference in a child's life that there is life beyond behavior. The 'B' does rate the level of Behavior (on a score of 1-9). C is for the 'Consumption' of staff time, energy and emotional investment. The consumption could be pain in the butt constant all day interventions for a kid who is functioning at a low level -- or it could be a lot of good quality time with a boy who is functuning at a high level. Either way, it reminds us that kids benefit from attention. I is for the level of Independance. This helps qualify the kind of consumption and gives us a way to look at the kid's level of development. T is for Therapy. This reminds us that our goal goes beyond just controlling behavior and should focus on the kind of growth and change that can sustain a higher quality of life over the long haul. It reminds us that a kid can have a day of bad behavior, consuming of lot of staff energy but which can be productive in learning and growing. (This is related to one of the reasons we ask on the Restraint form, "What was the state of relationship in the aftermath of the restraint." That tells some of us more about the appropriateness of the restraint than any of the other description. You can fool licencing but you can't fool the kid. Done at the right time (as initiated by the kid) and properly conducted, restraints should be theraputic and result in an improved relationship between the child and the caring adult. The point here is that there is a difference between 'B' and 'T'. Here's a little test to see how well you understand this: Explain why the perfect score (as you'd expect) is '9999', why '9999' is better than '9199'. Explain why '1919' is a good score and why '9191' is very worrisome. Whenever there is a BCIT score in a lognote, it prints out at the end of the note. I strongly encourage you to do the BCIT scores and to involve the kids in discussing the scores or scoring themselves. You won't win any bicycles or balloons, but you'll be on the way to getting the big prize. How do I do special forms. On many pages you'll see a drop down menu of the currently implemented special forms. We plan to implement some others by and by, and to eliminate some. The idea is to cut down on people having to schlepp around getting paper forms, filling out information which should really be in the log or is already, and then schlepping around again to deliver the forms to whoever is going to work at putting them where most people won't ever see them. Uh? What were you asking... Oh, how to do them. Well it's simple, you go to: www.abrloggingandmining.com/forms and download the ones you want. You can keep them on your own computer. (When they are updated, we'll notify you about it in the log.) You can type into those outlines off-line. Then, get into the logging pages, click on 'Choose a Special From', chose the one you're doing, click on 'Go to Special form'. The page you go to will have a few additional items to check or short fields to fill in. Then upload the file/form you typed from your computer to the ABR Logging site. Then submit it and you're done. If you get bounced off line, no problem, you've got the big part of your work on your computer and can go around again. There is one BIG GOTCHA: You must not let a word processor (like MSWORD) try to make your program pretty and ready for a printer. That will make it useless. Treat it as very plain text and use SAVE AS > text > linebreaks >lf (linefeeds). If you have trouble with msword, go down to wordpad, notepad, or even the msdos command prompt 'edit'. I know, I know, it's supposed to be really primative -- but it has ten times more editing features than you've had available for entering your reports up to now. The important thing is _plain_, unformatted _text_ with line breaks. How can I have more control over how what I type looks when it appears in the log output? Even when I put in blank lines, they disappear. Yes, we eat blank lines and also tabs. The log processing programs will format your stuff to look decent -- except for the special forms which are supposed to look ugly, all broken up into sections, and and institutional. Both for regular lognotes and special forms you can get some control by using these formatting 'requests': A blank line forces a 'line-break', and end of line and starting on a new line. All the other requests begin with a '.' and must start at the very beginning of a line at the far left _edge_. (You aren't uploading stuff with margin's are you?) The request .br will force a 'line break' ie the end of a line. The request .sp will force an blank line. That's it. Don't waste your time looking pretty; get the ball in the hoop.